Two UC Santa Barbara faculty members have been elected to Britain’s prestigious Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific academy. They are among only seven scholars at U.S. universities elected by the society this year. The Royal Society was founded in 1660 and is celebrating its 350th anniversary. It is made up of 1,300 of the most distinguished scientists from the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth countries, and the Republic of Ireland. Fellows of the Royal Society are elected for life.
UCSB’s Craig Hawker, director of the Materials Research Laboratory and a professor of chemistry, biochemistry, and materials, was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. Michael Goodchild, director of the Center for Spatial Studies at UCSB and a professor of geography, was elected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. They were among the 44 new Fellows, 8 Foreign Members and 1 Honorary Fellow elected in London on May 20. Having two members from the same U.S. university elected to the Royal Society in the same year is considered a rarity.
Chancellor Henry T. Yang called this important international recognition of two of his UCSB faculty colleagues “an extraordinary honor with 350 years of prestige and reputation.” He noted that the two scholars would be part of a society that has included among its members Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein, Dorothy Hodgkin, Francis Crick, James Watson, and Stephen Hawking. The current membership includes more than 60 Nobel Laureates.
In its official citations on the new members, the Royal Society praised their scientific creativity, dedication, and vision. The complete text of Goodchild’s citation states that Professor Michael Goodchild, Foreign Member of the Royal Society, “is the unchallenged global leader of Geographic Information (or systems) Science. This seeks to conceptualize the complexities of field- and object-based geographic phenomena as manifested across both the traditional physical and ‘hard’ social sciences. Based on this, he has led research teams which have created new analytical methods for integration and analysis of very large spatial databases, leading to a $20bn+ industry. The quality and innovative nature of his work have led to him being elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Foreign Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a gold medalist of the Royal Geographical Society.“
